Workshop Exercises: Decision

Safety Check

Gauge how comfortable people are speaking openly

Timing: Discovery

Run time
3-10 minutes

Group size
4-10

Why: Incorporate at the beginning or throughout a workshop

When: Use at the beginning or throughout a workshop to ensure that participants feel safe in expressing their thoughts

Instructions for running this play

Explain why you are doing the Safety Check exercise and that’s important to be able to talk about anything.
Ask participants to anonymously write a number between 1 and 5 on a paper note, indicating how safe they feel within the group.
1. I’ll smile, claim everything is great and agree with managers
2. I’m not going to say much, I’ll let others bring up issues
3. I’ll talk about some things, but others will be hard to say
4. I’ll talk about almost anything; a few things might be hard
5. No Problem, I’ll talk about anything
Collect the input from each participant (or use a hat or other container to keep the activity anonymous).
Make the results visible to the whole group.
Acknowledge the result and decide on next steps.

Master and adapt the play to fit your context and needs.

Let everyone use the same sticky note and pen color to ensure anonymity.

If safety is low, then use the remaining time to run an activity helping to increase the group safety level

If safety is medium, then be careful to ask about the group's opinion as some participants are not comfortable to talk about everything.

Offer an option for participants to provide anonymous feedback or suggestions on how to improve the comfort and safety of the environment.

Run better workshops with Learning Loop card decks.

Every card deck includes workshop patterns, so your team can put the methods to work in your next session.

Running behavioral design workshops? The Persuasive Patterns Workshop Playbook (PDF) shows you how to design and run them.

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